"Lesser" ports/versions of games you enjoyed anyway.

[ThoD]

First one the comes to mind is the Persona 3 port for the PSP, that was amazing and MUCH better than the standard PS2 version but people bash on it for not having the FES post-game stuff, which I don't mind. In order to port it, they basically only cut out the walking around the city/school parts (which I DESPISE in Persona games because it's just annoying and takes ages having to go around all the time) and left the rest of the game as is, that's all, on top of fixing couple bugs, resulting in easily the best port of a game out there in my opinion if we exclude PC ports, really don't get how people always forget to mention it...

And to be honest many ports to the PSP are better than originals if you ask me like the GTA ones among others even if they are considered inferior just because they don't play at 720p (standard back in the day PC had) or 480p (consoles)

 

[delta7890]

Many folks frown on them, but I quite like the GBA ports of the various SNES Mario games, as well as Link to the Past. If there was some way to address the reduced screen resolution through emulation, they'd be perfect in my book.

 

[TheManHimself]

I've probably spent more time with the SNES port of Samurai Shodown than I have with the real thing. I've come to the point in my life where I have a consolized MVS, and Samurai Shodown II is one of the more affordable NEO GEO carts, so I haven't really looked back for non-emulated SS; but that SNES port was a serviceable substitute for the real thing, and that's really all you can ask for from an inferior port.

 

[galaxian101]

Many folks frown on them, but I quite like the GBA ports of the various SNES Mario games, as well as Link to the Past. If there was some way to address the reduced screen resolution through emulation, they'd be perfect in my book.

Agree on the GBA SNES ports - especially the Capcom titles like Final Fight One and Super Ghouls and Ghosts

 

[emigre]

This was my (Sonic) jam.

 

[Deleted User]

Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City
In my opinion it has a better story. I mean, at least it's a complete story, with a dark(ish) twist in the end (kinda like Heat). Shame they didn't implement bullet time, it had the perfect plot device for it.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Mortal Kombat on Game Boy. It plays and animates like Kronika's fucking around with the Hourglass, but the music...



0:30 for the first fight theme, 4:40 for the second fight theme. I always thought that these compositions would've made for a kickass remix, but seeing as these are the Game Boy versions of these games, and that it isn't the main console versions, well...

These tracks were also used on the Game Gear version, but with that...Master System synth sound to it. IDK, I just never liked how that chip sounded, for the most part.

 

[FAST6191]

Mortal Kombat on Game Boy. It plays and animates like Kronika's fucking around with the Hourglass, but the music...



0:30 for the first fight theme, 4:40 for the second fight theme. I always thought that these compositions would've made for a kickass remix, but seeing as these are the Game Boy versions of these games, and that it isn't the main console versions, well...

These tracks were also used on the Game Gear version, but with that...Master System synth sound to it. IDK, I just never liked how that chip sounded, for the most part.

For a second there I thought the demoscene/keygen music collection tab had not in fact been paused.
Rarely have I heard that sort of thing out of the GB/GBC, probably would not have heard it either as I am unlikely to investigate fighting game ports to such things (even on the GBA I have never played a good one really and that has far more in the way of buttons, resolution and power).

 

[Silent_Gunner]

For a second there I thought the demoscene/keygen music collection tab had not in fact been paused.
Rarely have I heard that sort of thing out of the GB/GBC, probably would not have heard it either as I am unlikely to investigate fighting game ports to such things (even on the GBA I have never played a good one really and that has far more in the way of buttons, resolution and power).

The music on the genesis versions of anything before MK3 sometimes is just a port of the arcade music to the Genesis sound chip, but sometimes, they have original music like with this one:





There's some tracks in there that are just Genesis renditions of the arcade equivalents, but it almost seems like the porting company Probe had some sound engineer who maybe was a part of the demoscene as you mentioned.

To go off topic for a moment, I find it quite coincidental that Vectorman 1's title screen intro sequence isn't all that different from this one Amiga tech demo that I came across:

(has awesome music throughout, but the effect I'm referring to is at 7:40)

 

[DinohScene]

I guess Minecraft and Borderlands for Vita come to mind.
GTA stories and CW on PSP.

 

[FAST6191]

I am quite familiar with the mortal kombat games on the megadrive, though I never really did the arcade stuff to compare such things (fighting games in arcades here consisted of street fighter 2, virtua fighter, maybe a tekken one on rare occasion and I guess some copies of double dragon -- most things were racing games, shooting games (gun and spaceship), random peripherals (skiing one was fun) and other more classical arcade fare)..

On the similarities there. I have no info on anybody working at such things but would not be surprised if something did carry across -- if you have programmers that off their own back made cool stuff then as long as they can vaguely fit in with your company culture you skip having to interview loads of people if you instead make them an offer. I would however bet more on it being simple coincidence/logical progression -- spheres are to 3d graphics (at least along with cubes and cones and triangles) what pixels are to 2d art, primary colours are often picked to stand out and while that list of features scrolling down the bottom is mightily impressive for that time and hardware if you look at the maths underpinning such things it was predicted too (what today is "need EA budget" game graphics was 10 years earlier "needs hours on super cluster to render a frame" and tomorrow will likely be "mid tier dev can just kick it all to the system resources", and what is theoretical maths today* will be said supercluster tomorrow).

*depending upon your position it might have been theoretical maths in the 1980s too. Fluid mechanics often noted that the computers were not there to crunch the numbers and thus their best and brightest wrote down all the equations, and then often wandered off to Wall street to play for them and then got brought back decades later when computers had caught up.